In four short weeks, the house of cards has collapsed. The house, that is, built up from cards marked "success', "Vietcong dead', and "areas brought under US control'. • The house had been built with some skill. In the twelve months which followed the offensive at Tet, the Americans prided themselves on a degree of success. Hostile districts had been brought back under US control; fortifications had been renewed or rebuilt; Saigon's forces were once more prepared; and in the north, not far distant from Da Nang, operation "Taylor Common' was flushing the reds from the hills.
In the four days which followed February 23, the liberation forces struck two hundred coordinated blows, and. in followed, the offensive widened out until no portion of the country was prospect of a US defeat. Three fronts had been opened up. Around Saigon, American defences were pinned down by barrages of rockets and of mortar, while North Vietnamese troops, replete with heavy armour, advanced ever closer. The first airborne division, America's finest, was powerless to stop the infiltration, according Saigon, upwards thousand troops are gathered to the city's north. Pacification was revealed once again as a myth.
In the north. "Taylor Common' has been brought abruptly to a halt, Vietnamese and NLF units remain embedded in the hills. Close to the demilitarised zone, these although, so defective is American intelligence, troops have shown themselves it is uncertain whether they have crossed the zone direct or have arrived by skirting round through Laos.
In the centre, North Vietnamese pressure in the region of the High Plateaux is resisted by only one American division; tanks, lorries, and artillery pieces have been preparation for a battle. Devoid o ristoric cities, the area is nonetheless important Saigon: TE TESTS this turning movement, success would give the liberation forces control of the Laotian and Cambodian borders, WHOSE and more access to the south.
If the Americans have therefore been taken by surprise, and have been initiative again, the 1969 offensive marks no new departure in the conduct of the war. The pattern has existed at least since 1965. At that date, massive reinforcements and the extension of the bombings to the North enabled the United Uninter-oStensives, whose import was to stave launch off what looked like inevitable defeat. The first, with the introduction of 180,000 began in OCTober 1965, and throughout the 1965-1966 campaigning season;
it was repulsed. The second counter-offensive took place in the 1966-1967 dry season; and was no less decisively thrown back. Operation such as 'Cedar Falls' and Junction City either and thwarted.
NFRONT the days that DES HAUTS PLATEAUX tree trom the CAMBODGE • Loc Ninh and, Dau Thnic Vinh of thirty and North In force, on numerous towns and military objectives. perhaps in populous, important sectors:
Mekong Delta. Particularly significant is the advance on Saigon; and, according to Saigon namese troops are grouped in the provinces deprived of all to the north of that town.
mark the major NLF strikes.
strategic the SOCI US troops, occurred. continued at will from Victory Is Near failed to flush out guerillas, or were frustrated moved northward such forces as it could CYCHI the VIETNAM DU NORDI FRONT DU The 179 PARALLELE Americans, lov Da mans decision, -Tam Ky Chu Laid.
Luang Ngai® 7Dak To «Duc PhoNLF generals have a Kontum •An Ki Ban Me Thuot Then came Dala Where the Gu Bien Hoa FRONT DE to lose its first war.
SAIGON The NLF offensive beginning on February 23 has seen a series of attacks and bombardments The Front has, however, concentrated on three demilitarized zone sources, thirty thousand NLF and North VietThe map illustrates the three fronts; the dots The consequence of two years of failure was winter-spring campaign of 1967-1968. No counter-offensive took place on the pattern of those which hiterto had annually The initiative passed wholly to the NLF. The Americans, extended through every portion of the country, received severe setbacks during Tet; and the NLF, switching operations the north to the south, created threats to which the US forces could only belatedly respond. The American command lies about an NLF escalation of the war. It must | demo of 3,000 G.I.s in Saigon." relinquishing any hold on the delta; it denuded.
garrisons of the towns, which, with the pattern of preceding years. The weak to bring the are placed in a predicament from which they cannot escape: they must either escalate further the war or accept, through the peace talks, a humiliating defeat.
On the ground, the situation is open. Three fronts have emerged: and, like Napoleon, the seen their opponents' weaknesses with unerring skill. Napoleon's principal victories came through means as simple to understand as they were hard to effect. He first made a great show of a threat to the flank; when his oppenent, fearing that the flank would be turned, denuded the centre.
the Emperor's decisive assault: delivered at the centre itself.
next blows of the liberation forces will fall is hard now to see But, whether it be around Saigon, on the Plateau, or close to the 17th parallel, they are faced with the same pathetic array: of flanks already rolled back, of a centre denuded and soggy. America is about
----- pull-quotes -----
south of the 17th parallel; the High Plateaux region; and the Saigon region, including the
politically, it needed above all to secure. present offensive, therefore, accords